The Garden of Jane Delawney
Ironically, given my previous complaint about the dearth of releases in May 1970, I discovered as I prepared this entry that the debut album by Trees was, strictly speaking, released in late April. No matter: it’s a fine album.
I really wasn’t sure about it on my first listen, though. I started to write that I could imagine lying down, stoned, in some Midlands polytechnic refectory enjoying this. My doubts were mainly around the vocals: Celia Humphris has a good voice, but it sometimes (by no means always) sounds a bit too fragile for the music; on Glasgerion her soprano doesn’t quite have enough definition for the words.
Melody Maker ad.
But then, at some point, I realised I’d been beguiled. I think it was during Lady Margaret, a song that isn’t a million miles away from Matty Groves. Several of the songs on the album are traditional, the rest are by Bias Boshell, who later wrote I’ve Got The Music In Me for Kiki Dee and replaced Patrick Moraz in the Moody Blues (see his Wikipedia page).
I wasn’t the only one beguiled; Karl Dallas in Melody Maker commented that ‘Trees have a beautiful girl as a lead singer, a buxom lass… It’s not merely that physically she is very good to look at…’ Er, steady on Karl.
By the time I played the album through again, I’d already been onto Discogs and ordered the cd (the original album currently starts at £150)*. It sounds a little of its time, but, then, so does a lot of Fairport Convention of the period. And I was delighted to like it enough to buy, something that didn’t happen for the much more acclaimed In The Wake Of Poseidon and The Who Live At Leeds (see previous two entries).
Yes, it’s a little fey; yes, you can smell the patchouli oil and joss-stick-infused cheesecloth shirts, but I don’t really care. These days I’m older and somewhat staider, but had I still access to what Mike Harding memorably called cannibal’s raisins, I’d happily lie stoned on a polytechnic refectory floor somewhere to listen to this at volume.
*Tip: it has become habitual to look on Amazon for cds, especially obscure ones, because Amazon has historically been good for the long tail of products. Unfortunately, the prices there these days are often crazy. You may get a good price, but it’s always worth looking at DIscogs, eBay and Amazon.fr as well. The latter was a surprise; in the past I’ve often found 2nd hand UK cds there at very low prices.
Pending the arrival of the cd, I listened on Spotify but it’s also available as a YouTube playlist.
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